Modern acute hospitals are very busy, noisy places with a very fast through-put of patients. People with dementia, who are also very ill and anxious, find this environment very difficult. An additional factor is that modern hospitals are very different from the hospitals of the past so make little sense to them. It may not be obvious, for example, where the toilet is, and they cannot always see the staff.

Modern hospitals are rarely designed to take account of the cognitive and perceptual problems of people with dementia. The Virtual Hospital modelling tool shows how to make an acute setting dementia-friendly and in doing so, easier for everyone.